On our second day in Saint Pierre we ventured across the bay, right over to the far side, to dive the Raisnier wreck. Dad and myself dived it in the afternoon with Ann and Friso (our crew) diving it in the morning. The Raisinier is a shallow wreck with the deepest point being at only 10m deep, but this doesn’t inhibit the beauty of the site. There is an abundance of coral and marine life all over and most of the fish aren’t scarred of divers and will happily swim up to and around you.

Like I said there is an abundance or coral and sponges all over the wreck site and they house many of the fish and sea creatures that live there. They also make the wreck site so amazingly colourful and photogenic. Dad had a run in with some Yellow Tube Sponge as he was hovering watching some fish. There isn’t just Yellow Tube Sponge though, there are Vase Sponges, Sea Anemone and many, many more.

Yellow Tube Sponge - Saint Pierre, Martinique 06/03/2016

As we were exploring a part of the wreck, a Pufferfish poked its head out from under it. It was a fairly shy fish because it didn’t venture far from the protection of the wreck and kept swimming back under as I tried to take pictures. I did manage to get a couple but, as you can see in the one below, there was lots of tiny fish swimming around between us, making the picture look cloudy.

Pufferfish - Saint Pierre, Martinique 06/03/2016

The dive site wasn’t big but we managed to cover it all multiple times within half an hour. We both had plenty of air left but got bored seeing the same stuff over and over again so decided to surface early.

Diver - Saint Pierre, Martinique 06/03/2016

If you are in Saint Pierre and fancy doing some diving I would definitely recommend the Raisinier Wreck due to how easy it is. The wreck is also viewable from the surface when snorkelling and is easily duck dived to get a closer look.

If you would like to see more photos related to this post check out the Gallery below.

The first afternoon we were in Saint Pierre we (myself, Ann and Friso) did a dive, to the Yacht Italien Wreck. The Yacht Italien was one of the ships sunk during the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelée, and it was possible to start the dive from Ripples II instead of the Dinghy. The wreck sat at about 25m but soon after hitting the bottom we discovered that the wreck had either been completely covered by the sea bed, or it had just eroded away. All we found of the wreck was the very end of the bow.

Instead of just surfacing after 5 minutes we decided to have a swim around to see what else we could find. As usual we found a couple Lion Fish, and I couldn't resist taking yet more pictures. On this dive though I thought I should take more pictures of the coral, sponges, etc. as well as the fish. One sponge that really interest me is the Yellow Tube Sponge. They are a long tube that sprouts towards the surface in a group usually consisting of 5 or more tubes. They interest me because they look funny, that's the truth.

Yellow Tube Sponge - Saint Pierre, Martinique, 05/03/2016

After swimming around for a while, seeing all the usual fish, eels, coral, etc. we see on nearly every dive we came across a big fisherman's cage filled with Butterflyfish, Angelfish, Sergent Majors and the biggest Moray Eels we have seen so far. These Eels were HUGE, easy the thickness of my calf and about as long as I am tall. Even thought it is cruel we hung around and took some pictures and filmed the fish and eels a while before surfacing.

Spotted Moray Eel In Cage - Saint Pierre, Martinique, 05/03/2016

We ended the dive at that point as we had seen everything around us and didn't fancy swimming back to our entry point. Dad was on the surface in the dinghy to pick us up to save us swimming back to Ripples II.

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Saint Pierre wasn’t our next stop in Martinique, that was actually Fort Du France but it was for one night and to break up the journey. Saint Pierre is a small town in the north of Martinique, at the foot of the Mt. Pelée Volcano. Saint Pierre was completely destroyed in 1902 when the volcano erupted with devastating effect, not only was the town completely destroyed but 12 ships sunk as a result of the eruption. Those 12 ships are now all individual dive sites ranging from 10, all the way down to 55m in depth.

Since the eruption the town has been rebuilt but there are still ruins dotted around as a reminder of the horrific events that happened 114 years ago. The town is beautiful and just what you’d expect from a French governed island, and just like nearly every other town we’ve visited in the Caribbean there are cannons facing out to sea.

Cannon - Saint Pierre, Martinique 06/03/2016

There are also lots of steps in Saint Pierre as it built on a rather steep slope on the mountains that sit behind it. As you walk round you feel very much like you are in French village (because you are), lots of small shops and cafe’s, and there was even a farmers market on when we arrived. Saint Pierre isn’t big so you can walk round it all in probably half an hour. It seemed like the whole town was out and about, people were milling about everywhere and there was an enormous amount of traffic passing through for such a small town.

Farmers Market - Saint Pierre, Martinique 06/03/2016

As with everywhere else we have been I got a couple of pictures of Ripples II sat in the bay, about 50m from the small beach that lay along the waterfront.

Ripples II In The Bay 1 - Saint Pierre, Martinique 06/03/2016

I have another couple of post from our time in Saint Pierre but they both need to be separate posts as they are about a couple of dives we did to a couple of the shallower wrecks in the bay.

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Have you ever been to Saint Pierre?

Thanks for reading!

Rob

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After nearly a month in St. Vincent & The Grenadines, and a quick stop in St. Lucia, we have finally ventured further north to Martinique. Our first stop in Martinique was a small town called Anse D’ Arlets. There was a really nice dive on the north side of the bay so that’s where we did all our diving. we did 3 dives over 2 days and I came away with lots of photos I was really happy with. The first dive was in the morning of March 1st and our first time diving this site. It’s a good job it was a good one because that was the only site in the bay we had found any information about. On the this dive we found Lion Fish almost instantly. Like I may have mentioned in an earlier post, Lion Fish are not indigenous to Caribbean waters but numbers are growing and they are becoming increasingly common to see. I still like photographing and filming them though because they look strangely beautiful.

Lionfish 1 - Anse D'Arlets, Martinique 01/03/2016

Not long after we saw the first Lion Fish, I saw a French Angel fish. Normally they are happy with you hanging around and taking pictures of, or filming them but this one wouldn’t stay still. The only decent picture I got was the one below but I still like it because it portrays the fish not watning to be photographed and gives it a bit of attitude.

French Angelfish - Anse D'Arlets, Martinique 01/03/2016

We saw a second Lion Fish on this dive, towards the end just before we started our ascent.

We saw all kinds of different marine life on the second dive, but the first thing that stood out to was was a pufferfish hiding in a piece of coral. The puffer didn’t hang around long so neither did we and continued on our original course.

Pufferfish In Coral 1 - Anse D'Arlets, Martinique 02/03/2016

Further into our dive we found a Spotted Moray Eel swimming around, they are normally poking their heads out from under coral, so stopped to see what it did. The eel just lay there opening and closing its mouth, like they usually do when something approaches them.

Spotted Moray Eel - Anse D'Arlets, Martinique 02/03/2016

Before we surface at the end of a dive we always do a 3 minute decompression stop at 5m as a safety precaution, it’s normally way above the bottom so there is nothing to look at. I normally resort to just hanging around, staring at my dive watch, counting down my decomp time. This time though I decided to take pictures of my feet, because why not.

Fins - Anse D'Arlets, Martinique 01/03/2016

Like I stated above we did the same dive site 3 times but from different drop points so we could cover the whole site.

I didn’t take my GoPro on the final dive because, like I said earlier, it was the same site for the 3rd time and I just wanted to enjoy watching the fish, and thought I had taken pictures of, and filmed all the fish that lived there.

If you would like to see more photos related to this post check out the Gallery below.

If you would like to see pictures before they hit the blog then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Have you ever been to Martinique?